So, some jackass idiot Civil War buff called Antietam "America's self-inflicted holocaust".

[Rabrrrrrr]

I was watching History channel, and it was a documentary on the battle of Antietam.

Some jackoff Civil War historian idiot actually called the battle "America's self-inflicted holocaust".

:puke: :eyes:

What a jackass.

Civil War buffs are a weird breed, indeed. Ever notice how historians are, generally, rather normal people - unless they're Civil War historians, and then, whether amateur or professors, it's like they live in the Civil War - hairstyles, beard styles, language. Civil War historians are more obsessed about their subject than any other historians I've ever encountered.

Really weird.

But the idiot in the documentary - sheesh.

[AlCzervik]

1. Rabrrrrrr! civil war buffs always look like they do reenactments. It's difficult

to take them seriously.

[RoyGBiv]

3. Actually, they don't ...

Like any other group, the media likes to pick the most eccentric individuals to put on the TeeVee.

I know, literally, thousands of Civil War historians and "buffs." The vast majority of them you couldn't pick out of a crowd if you tried.

Reenactors tend to be another breed entirely, but there are generally two types, the so-called "hard cores" and the "weekend warriors." The latter, again, you couldn't pick out of a crowd. The former aspire to as much realism as possible when they involve themselves in reenactments, and to achieve that, they grow beards, develop the dialects, etc.

[no name no slogan]

2. Looks like somebody just won the FREE COCKPUNCH OF THE DAY

What an idjit.

[DS1]

9. Damn, I've been paying for mine

[DarkTirade]

23. I've always worked for mine.

Walk into a crowded biker bar, grab the first ass you can get ahold of.

Works every time.

[RoyGBiv]

4. Who was it?

I bet I can guess ... probably one of four or five people. The History Channel tends to carry military historians who concentrate on Civil War history, which are a bit of a different type of historian than most and are given to grand overstatement regarding the late unpleasantness.

[Aristus]

5. Holocaust is an ill-chosen word in this case. But, still,

there was one ten-minute period during the battle in which we lost twice as many soldiers than have been killed up to this point in Iraq. Ten minutes. The Civil War was no church picnic on the grass.

[RoyGBiv]

7. Indeed ...

That word tends to be invoked in many military historical circles when trying to get across the absolute horror of events like that.

If the person who said this was who I think it may have been, he's one of those who are continually irritated by people who think of the Civil War and its battles in lofty, romantic terms where words like honor and duty and images of crisp, clean soldiers out on a holiday to save the mighty Union for God's purpose hold sway.

It was a bloody, nasty mess, and Sharpsburg was, at that time, the prime example of just how horrific it was.

[khashka]

12. The whole fucking war was a fucking holocaust

We tend to forget just how terrible it was. Honestly, I can't deal with it. Too much pain, too much horror.

Khash.

[realisticphish]

17. yeah

it's too easy to just look at paintings of a "brave charge," and ignore the photographs of the dead.

[Dogtown]

6. The Civil War holocaust

was Andersonville, and that Yankee camp outside Chicago.

A metaphor should have *some* comparative value...

Antietam was some bloody shit though.

[RoyGBiv]

8. Good point n/t

[realisticphish]

10. Camp Douglas

scary stuff (and it was actually IN Chicago)

[Rabrrrrrr]

11. There was a documentary on Camp Douglas right before the other one.

I'd not heard the Camp Douglas atrocities before - fucking awful. Inhumanly awful.

[realisticphish]

15. yeah, i watched it this morning

god, that was sick. Andersonville was horrendous, but no one (even myself) even freakin KNOWS about Camp Douglas.

[Dogtown]

14. Cold MoFo

I really don't get the glamour that these enthusiasts seem to find in that war. EDIT: thanks for the memory boost!

[realisticphish]

16. it's not about glamour

for me, at least (I'm a civil war geek).

It's right on the line between ages; old tactics, new weapons, like an early rehearsal for WWI. I've been to Antietam, and there's no glamour when you're standing in the sunken road, or walk across burnside's bridge, or standing in Devil's Den at Gettysburg. I guess i consider it my own way of making sure i never forget the horrors of war :shrug:

[Dogtown]

18. Good clarification

Sorry if I sounded judgmental, wasn't my intent.

I have a fascination with WWI.

[realisticphish]

19. holy cow

THERE'S a war that will give you nightmares. I started reading up on it lately, and i regularly wish i could reach through the pages and strangle the allied commanders

[conscious evolution]

20. You got that right.

I went to a WWI battlefield in France once.Place near Verdun.
There was a French built bunker.The Germans captured it with only two or three casualties.The French lost over a hundred thousand KIA taking it back.
One bunker.

I pretty much lost interest in war time history stuff after that.

[realisticphish]

21. i read one stat

that in 2 months in 1917, i think, France lost more men than the U.S. did in the ENTIRE 20TH CENTURY.

I always bring out that stat when freepers start bitching about France "giving up"

[petronius]

29. We went to Verdun last summer - it was a really chilling place

Unfortunately, we didn't have time to get to any of the outlying forts, but the ossuary and the subterranean fortress in town were enough...

[galledgoblin]

24. I might add Fort Pillow to that list.

no parallels to the concentration camps, but more than enough hatred and desire to wipe out a race and war crimes committed to make me think of Nazis.

[realisticphish]

13. well...

1. a great or complete devastation or destruction, esp. by fire.
2. a sacrifice completely consumed by fire; burnt offering.
3. (usually initial capital letter) the systematic mass slaughter of European Jews in Nazi concentration camps during World War II (usually prec. by the).
4. any mass slaughter or reckless destruction of life.

By the dictionary definition it IS correct, if a freaking stupid word choice. And I'm a civil war buff, yet I do not have burnsides... ;)

[Elidor]

22. Was it Shelby Foote?

I never could stand that old stuffed shirt with his carefully contrived (and rather too theatrical) Virginia accent. Val Kilmer's as Doc Holliday was more believable. Yes, I actually said that.

[RoyGBiv]

25. Foote ...

Foote's accent is Mississippian and rather genuine.

[sarge43]

27. Born in Greenville MS. Lived in the South all his life. n/t

[Rabrrrrrr]

28. No, it was a youngish guy, maybe in his 30s. He wasn't dressed Civil Warrish,

but was definitely into extremist statements the other times he showed up in the documentary.

[mitchum]

26. Read "Confederates in the Attic" for a hilarious and disturbing account of Civil War fetishists